The other day the story about a collision between the attack sub USS Hartford (SSN 768) and the amphibious assault ship USS New Orleans (LPD 18) made the news. Here’s a couple of pics I found of the damaged Hartford heading into port (reportedly Bahrain, which would make sense.)

Notice the cracks where the sail meets the hull.

And here’s another, showing just how badly the sail took it:

That's not going to be cheap to fix.

This looks like it was a lot more serious that it first sounded. You can see the USS New Orleans already in port in the background.

What Jefferson was saying was, Hey! You know, we left this England place ’cause it was bogus; so if we don’t get some cool rules ourselves – pronto – we’ll just be bogus too! Get it?

They’ll fix Hartford just like they fixed San Fran. The only variable is the career count.

Other stuff I’ve read imply that the hit to the sail was secondary damage. Since New Orleans lost 25,000 gallons of fuel, the thinking is that one of Hartford’s bow planes ripped open New Orleans’ hull, that being the only way to vent so much fuel so quickly.

And, in closing, I must quote my all-time favorite band:

I had my hands in the river
My feet back up on the banks
Looked up to the Lord above and said hey man thanks
Sometimes I feel so good I gotta scream
She says Gordie baby I know exactly what you mean
She said, she said I swear to God she said

My memory is muddy what’s this river that I’m in
New Orleans is sinking man and I don’t want to swim